7-Year-Old Girl Accidentally Strangles Herself With Jump Rope

A routine playground trip turned deadly when a 7-year-old girl died Tuesday in Sammamish, Wash., after she accidentally strangled herself with a jump rope.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to release the girl’s name, pending autopsy results. The autopsy will most likely be performed today, King County Medical Examiner spokesman James Apa said today.

King County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Cindi West said the girl, along with her brother, 5, babysitter, 30, and the babysitter’s mother, 60, were at the Samantha Smith Elementary School Tuesday evening when she started to play with the rope by wrapping it around her neck. The young girl then proceeded to come down the slide.

“Either her body weight trapped the rope underneath her or the rope got caught on something and began to strangle her,” West said this morning. “She didn’t make it all the way down the slide and was lying face down and unconscious when she was found.”

West said the girl was left alone while her brother and the two caretakers went to pick berries around 7 p.m. The girl had been repeatedly told by her caretakers not to place the rope around her neck, West said.

She was rushed unconscious to Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue, Wash., but could not be revived by doctors. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The death is being investigated by the Major Crimes unit, which “is standard in all child-death cases,” but appears to be accidental, West said.